Troops Arrest 21 Security Personnel Over Alleged Extortion in Abia

By: Zagazola Makama

Troops of 14 Brigade, Ohafia, have arrested 21 persons, including personnel from various security agencies, over alleged extortion and illegal stop-and-search lactivities along the Enugu–Port Harcourt highway in Abia State.

Sources told Zagazola that the suspects were arrested at about 1:40 p.m. on April 28 during Operation Checkmate duties in Ohafia Local Government Area.

The sources said the operation led to the interception of individuals allegedly involved in unauthorised stop-and-search and extortion activities around the Ihitte Uboma axis.

According to the sources, those arrested include one personnel of the Nigerian Army, six from the Nigerian Navy, one from the Nigerian Air Force, three police officers, one officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, three operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, three personnel of the Nigeria Immigration Service, and three officers of the Nigeria Customs Service.

They added that the arrested personnel are currently in military custody for further investigation and appropriate disciplinary action.

The sources said the operation was part of ongoing efforts to curb illegal activities along major highways and restore order in the area.

Troops Arrest 21 Security Personnel Over Alleged Extortion in Abia

Revisiting the Malian Attacks and Their Implications for Nigeria

By Samuel Aruwan

While traveling between Kaduna, Jos and Kafanchan on Saturday, April 25, 2026, where I spent the night, I followed developments in Mali closely. My keen interest in the unfolding events was shaped by my background as a student of conflict sensitive reporting, which has taught me to pay attention not only to attacks themselves, but also to the statements, signals and patterns that emerge in their aftermath. Reports of coordinated attacks across several locations were troubling enough. As the day progressed, three separate statements emerged, one from ‘Jama’at Nasr al Islam wal Muslimin’, known as JNIM, another from the ‘Azawad Liberation Front’, the FLA, and a third from the Malian Transitional Government.

Taken together, those statements reveal important signals about the changing security landscape in the Sahel and offer lessons Nigeria should not ignore.

The first statement came from JNIM, which openly claimed responsibility for the attacks and publicly acknowledged working with the ‘Azawad Liberation Front’. It said its fighters targeted the Presidency in Koulouba, the Ministry of Defence, Modibo Keita International Airport in Bamako, and military positions in Kati. It also claimed battlefield gains in Mopti, Sevare, Gao and Kidal, describing the Kidal operation as one carried out with the participation of its partners in the ‘Azawad Liberation Front’.

That language deserves close attention. Armed groups do not casually describe one another as partners, especially when they come from different ideological traditions. The choice of words suggests growing cooperation built around shared strategic interests.

The FLA’s own statement removed any uncertainty. It declared that its forces had taken control of Kidal and openly stated that the operation was carried out in partnership with JNIM. It also acknowledged participation in attacks against military positions in Gao under the same coordination.

This was a direct admission of operational cooperation.

The FLA framed its campaign as a struggle for territorial liberation. It accused the Malian military and Russian forces of worsening civilian suffering and called for international political and humanitarian intervention. In doing so, it sought to place its military operations within a wider political contest over the future of Bamako.

Then came the Malian Government’s statement, delivered by Brigadier General Issa Ousmane Coulibaly, Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization. The government confirmed that armed terrorist groups carried out complex and coordinated attacks against Kati, Sevare, Gao, Kidal and Bamako, resulting in casualties and injuries, while insisting the attacks were contained and the situation brought under control.

One phrase stands out, complex and coordinated attacks.

That admission points to planning, synchronized movement, communication networks and operational discipline. It suggests armed groups that are learning, adapting and becoming more capable of carrying out simultaneous attacks over wide distances.

The pattern is not entirely unfamiliar. On the night of January 28 into January 29, 2026, armed fighters launched a coordinated assault on Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey and the adjoining Air Base 101, targeting strategic military assets and critical infrastructure. Similar patterns have also been attempted in Nigeria, including terrorist attacks on military positions in Mallam Fatori.

The difference in Mallam Fatori was the response. Nigerian troops mounted a coordinated and overwhelming counter offensive, neutralised dozens of terrorists, recovered arms and valuable operational enablers, and denied the attackers the momentum they sought. That outcome shows the value of preparedness, sound intelligence, rapid coordination and sustained pressure.

Success in places such as Mallam Fatori must not be treated as an endpoint. It must be consolidated, a point I have consistently made, including in my earlier article, “Nigeria’s Military Victory in Mallam Fatori and the Imperative of Consolidation”.

Recent warnings closer to home make that even more necessary. On April 16, 2026, Premium Times, quoting a leaked internal security memo, reported that terrorist groups were working together and plotting attacks on critical infrastructure between Abuja and neighbouring Niger State. The report drew attention to strategic facilities considered attractive targets because of their symbolic and operational value. I am certain that if there is merit in the leaked memo, Nigeria’s security forces and intelligence agencies will leave nothing to chance.

Read together, events in Mali, Niamey and developments within Nigeria point in one direction. Armed groups across the Sahel are adapting, building links and refining tactics. What is happening across the region is no longer distant from Nigeria’s security reality.

Nigeria has carried a heavy burden in confronting terrorism, and the Armed Forces of Nigeria have made enormous sacrifices in that fight. I speak with conviction on this, having covered conflict as an embedded journalist and later served in public office, accompanying troops to the frontline and witnessing firsthand the courage, discipline and sacrifice that define their service.

That sacrifice must be matched by steady resolve.

Nigeria needs stronger intelligence gathering, tighter border surveillance, closer coordination among security agencies, sustained disruption of illicit arms flows and deeper regional cooperation. Diplomatic differences within West Africa should never weaken collective action against threats that move freely across borders and exploit every gap in coordination.

The warning signs are there. Nigeria must remain vigilant, consolidate recent gains and keep steady pressure on terrorist groups wherever they operate.

Aruwan is a postgraduate student at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Revisiting the Malian Attacks and Their Implications for Nigeria

Mali, Russia, and the Collapse of a Dangerous Illusion

By: Michael Mike

The coordinated jihadist assault of 25 to 26 April did not merely expose the limits of the AES and Mali’s military junta. It shattered the strategic illusion that has guided the country since its rupture with ECOWAS and the wider international community.
By Oumarou Sanou

The events that unfolded across Mali last weekend are not merely another chapter in the Sahel’s long-running crisis. They represent something deeper: the unravelling of a strategic gamble that replaced cooperation with isolation, institutions with propaganda, and diversified partnerships with dependence on a single, unreliable and overstretched ally.

On 25 April, coordinated attacks struck Bamako, Kati, Gao, Kidal, and Sévaré simultaneously. These were not isolated incidents but a synchronised offensive that exposed both the operational reach of jihadist groups and the fragility of the Malian state’s security architecture. Within hours, official claims of control began to crumble. By Sunday morning, Kidal had fallen. The Russian flag that had flown there as a provocation to France, ECOWAS, and the UN was gone. In its place stood silence, and a column of Africa Corps mercenaries negotiating a quiet, ignominious exit with the very armed groups they were contracted to defeat. This was not a tactical setback. It was the collapse of a narrative.
For pan-African observers who foresaw and warned of precisely this outcome, the moment calls not for satisfaction but for grief, reckoning, and an honest accounting of how Mali arrived here.
In November 2023, the Malian junta celebrated the recapture of Kidal as vindication: expel the West, distance from ECOWAS, embrace Moscow, and sovereignty would be restored. The claim was always hollow. Kidal was never pacified. It was occupied. No roads were built, no schools reopened, no trust rebuilt with local communities. Russian mercenaries committed documented atrocities in surrounding villages: summary executions, sexual violence, and burning of homes. They did not win hearts. They produced hatred. And hatred, given time and weapons, produces exactly what we witnessed last weekend.

Reports indicate that African Corps forces engaged briefly before negotiating their withdrawal, leaving Malian troops exposed nearly 1,500 kilometres from the capital. A senior Malian official told RFI that Russian forces had been warned of the impending attack three days in advance but took no action. Their eventual withdrawal, he suggested, appeared pre-arranged. That is not a security partnership. That is abandonment.
The human cost was grave. Defence Minister General Sadio Camara was confirmed dead. Intelligence chief General Modibo Koné and Chief of Defence Staff General Oumar Diarra were wounded. These are not routine battlefield losses. They are indicators of systemic failure at the highest levels of the state.
The Africa Corps responded with a press statement claiming sweeping success: 10,000 to 12,000 Western-backed attackers repelled, over 1,000 enemy casualties inflicted, and the presidential palace secured. One would almost admire the audacity, were the stakes not so human.
The documented facts tell a different story. Kidal fell. The Azawad Liberation Front escorted at least 400 Russian soldiers out of the city as evacuees, northward to Tessalit, 300 kilometres away. Fighters subsequently appeared at the Intahaka gold mine, suggesting further positions had been abandoned. Armoured vehicles were destroyed in Gao. Barracks in Sévaré fell to rebel control. Helicopters burned on the ground. The United States Embassy told its citizens to stay indoors. Even reliably pro-junta social media accounts quietly changed their tone by Sunday morning. This is not propaganda written with ink. It is propaganda written with Malian blood.
None of this should surprise serious observers. Moscow’s track record as a security guarantor is, at best, inconsistent. It disengaged from Assad in Syria when the strategic calculus shifted. It left Maduro to manage Venezuela largely alone. It proved of limited use to Armenia when it mattered most. In every theatre, the pattern is the same: arrive with noise, project influence cheaply, and withdraw when the cost rises. Moscow is too economically constrained to underwrite African development and too strategically transactional to sustain durable commitments. It seeks presence, resources, and optics. The safety of ordinary Africans is, at best, incidental.
The Alliance of Sahel States has fared no better. Faced with Mali’s gravest crisis in years, neither Burkina Faso nor Niger mobilised meaningful support. The alliance exists more in declarations than in collective action. Its members now watch events in Bamako with undisguised anxiety: if Russia cannot hold Kidal, what assurance remains for their own positions?
Before the junta expelled MINUSMA, African peacekeepers, including Nigerian troops, helped stabilise Kidal under difficult conditions. They shed blood in pursuit of regional security and were removed without transition or acknowledgement. The vacuum that followed is now plainly visible.
The events of last weekend are not a victory to be welcomed. The expansion of jihadist territory is a catastrophe for every Malian, and a direct threat to Nigeria and the broader region. A movement emboldened by military success does not respect borders. A fragmented regional posture only widens the openings that extremist networks exploit.
The lesson is not about choosing between external patrons. It is about recognising that no external actor, from the East or the West, can substitute for a coherent national strategy, accountable governance, and genuine regional cooperation. Sovereignty is not measured in flags or slogans. It is measured by a state’s capacity to protect its citizens, hold its territory, and create conditions for stability and growth.
On these counts, the current model in Mali has failed. The verdict is written not in policy papers but in burning helicopters and abandoned positions. Africa deserves partners, not patrons: relationships grounded in mutual respect and genuine commitment, not in the fantasy of an ally who negotiates its own withdrawal before the dust has settled.
The twilight of the Russian illusion in Africa is here. What happens next in the Sahel depends, in large part, on whether its leaders and their neighbours dare to learn the lesson.
Oumarou Sanou is a social critic, pan-African observer and researcher focusing on governance, security, and political transitions in the Sahel. He writes on geopolitics, regional stability, and African leadership dynamics.

Contact: sanououmarou386@gmail.com

Mali, Russia, and the Collapse of a Dangerous Illusion